The Old Men of Hoy
By Paul Evans
Background
Jim (Symon) and Liam (Brady) had decided that a good 50th birthday year celebration would be to climb the Old Man of Hoy. They decided they needed a young hotshot to lead the crux, but after miserably failing to recruit one, they reluctantly settled on an old git, so I was roped in. Jim’s friend Ken O’Connor decided that this would be an ideal opportunity to visit his friends who lived on Hoy (small world eh?), even though, since he hates abseils, he didn’t want to climb the route itself. So the party of 4 was assembled. We pencilled in an end of April date “if the forecast was good”, when it would be hopefully not too cold, but before the main midge and fulmar season (if you don’t know why fulmars are a bad thing, you’re very lucky - try to stay that way).
As the date approached, we could hardly believe that the Scottish forecast looked good; packing commenced, and large cams were borrowed (thanks Duncan and Andy). Careful study of ferry timetables, and masterful trip planning by Ken, produced an unpleasant surprise. Our best option would be to leave Manchester at midnight, and drive through the night.
The trip up
As we assembled round at Ken’s on Friday night, we looked at the gear mountain we’d jointly created, and despaired of getting all that, and 4 blokes, into Ken’s car. However, Ken proved he was not just a master mechanic, but also a master car packer, and so with every spare inch of space crammed with gear, we were off. Jim & Liam climbed in the back, and promptly dropped off to sleep, and Ken & I drove the whole way taking turns. “These young lads can’t handle late nights” we thought - though I was finding it quite a struggle myself. However, as the dawn broke driving through the Cairngorms, the worst was over; soon we were tucking into welcome bacon butties and coffee at Thurso, and then we headed down to Scrabster to catch the noon ferry to Orkney main island. The weather was brilliant- if you want to know what it’s normally like, watch Dave McLeod’s “Long Hope” DVD. The ferry passes close to the Old Man & St John’s head, which caused two thoughts, the first being “oh my god what are we getting ourselves into” and the second being “perhaps we’ll leave the Long Hope route for another lifetime then…”
The mountain of gear was unloaded onto the quayside, and a 2 hour wait commenced for the small ferry to Hoy. On the trip to Hoy, I was short of change, and just bought a single ticket whereas the other lads brought returns. On being questioned about why I’d done this, I pointed out that it was by no means certain that we were going to survive, and therefore I didn’t want to waste any money on what might be an unused return ticket. This reply seemed to cause a little consternation. We got to the quayside on Hoy and unloaded our mountain of gear, at which points Ken’s friend Steph arrived to take us to her house at the other end of the island... in a Toyota Yaris. The next episode of packing tested even Ken’s skills, but finally we were all in the Tardis, and off we went.
Ken’s friends John and Steph were wonderfully hospitable throughout our whole time on the Island and we couldn’t have been made more welcome, a fantastic base from which to operate. We had a large spare room with 4 comfy beds, and having been awake for 36 hours we slept very soundly, although we did note that Ken seemed to snore in Chinese.
The ascent & descent
Up and breakfasted, the Sunday morning weather was glorious, and we couldn’t afford to waste it. This time there was just us and our day sacks to be fitted in the Tardis, John drove us round to Rackwick bay, and we sent off across the headland moors to the clifftops.
Jim was using his pocket video camera on the ascent, and there is a short film of our climb, but sadly it has been X rated due to the copious amounts of bad language. Mostly mine.
I’d been told that the descent route was no worse than the one to Gogarth main cliff, which I’ve done several times and found ok (-ish). However the Gogarth path was dry when I did it, whereas this was damp and slippy. I was in approach shoes and found it extremely worrying, the other lads in boots found it less so. We arrived at the bottom, and not unnaturally we all looked up. We all went a bit quiet…immediately gobsmacked, our objective was about the height of the CIS building but made of crumbling sandstone with the lower third mostly overhanging. What had we let ourselves in for?
At this point Ken (who had just come to spectate and lend moral support) correctly decided that he will never get another chance to do this route in such perfect conditions (it was gorgeous, cloudless blue sky and hardly a breath of wind) and even though he hates abseiling, decides he will come with us after all. So we became a large and sociable rope of 4.
We quickly geared up & roped up, and Liam set off up the “pleasant warmup” first pitch, nice 4b moves on lovely rock and a chance to get dialled in. Jim seconded, then I followed, clanking gently and with a distinct lean to the left caused by 3 massive cams. I trailed a rope to Ken, who stayed on the ground, as there was no point in him setting off until we knew whether I could do the crux 2nd pitch.
The second pitch downclimbs for 15 ft, traverses right across sandy ledges, then goes up, soon reaching a bottomless chimney. The actual crux is exiting this chimney to get into a lovely corner crack. Fortunately the holds got less sandy the higher I got, and the gear was good. It took a couple of goes to work out the moves out of the chimney, and to fix a runner I was happy with at the crux, but once I had that, it was fine. I’d think the route is at least E1, if not E2 in the cold wind and wet (which it how most folk have to deal with it) but on such a rare perfect day it felt around HVS – we were very lucky. I then realised that I hadn’t yet placed a single monster cam (and I could in fact have done the route with nothing larger than a 4 friend) but having brought the darned things, I thought I’d better use them, so I found placements for them on the rest of pitch 2. Then I brought Jim up, and next Liam, who we tried to persuade to sit in a tiny niche “as the stance was cramped”, which was most amusing until he finally revolted.
While I’d been finishing the crux, Ken had climbed pitch 1, and then as Liam was climbing the crux, Ken invented some amazingly complex technique for safely getting half way up pitch 2 without being belayed, which was impressive, even if none of us understood it. This did save quite a bit of time, after which we belayed him up the rest of pitch 2 in a rather more conventional manner.
Finally we were all assembled at the top of pitch 2. Jim led the next pitch (or what he thought was the next pitch), stopping at what turned out to be a belay half way up pitch 3. Liam led what he thought was pitch 4, which turned out to be the rest of pitch 3. Jim then made Liam climb pitch 4, since the mistake had clearly been Liam’s fault. Pitches 3 and 4 are slightly scrappy and the rock is not above suspicion, but nothing to worry experiencedtrad climbers, and the situation is fantastic. Finally we all arrived at the base of pitch 5.
By this time it was getting rather late. In the best Bonington tradition, we decided that success constituted (a) getting at least 2 members of the party on the top and (b) getting everyone down before it went dark. So Jim and Liam were sent off to bag the summit.
The belays at the tops of pitches 3 and 4 were also in the state that you see in instructional manuals labelled something like “don’t trust your life to rusty crap like this, or you will die for sure”, so Ken and I decided it was a sensible use of our time to re-equip the belays with the ab tat and maillons I’d brought. We couldn’t do anything about the ancient pegs and bolts, but at least we had new tat and we could equalise it properly. The pitch 4 belay used all the tat, so after that, gear was left.
With the two birthday boys safely summited and back down at the top of pitch 4, the mass descent commenced. Pitch 4 down to 3 went well, but pitch 3 down to 2 was very diagonal across broken ground, and even our use of the European death knot did not save us from a jammed rope. Jim bravely went back up to deal with it, and the jammed rope was clearly terrified by the sight of an approaching Jim, and rapidly became cooperative. Normal service was resumed, and only the final abseil remained.
We’d read that with 60 meter ropes (which we had), you are supposed to be able to reach the ground from the top of pitch 2, saving all kinds of diagonal backrope shennagins. As I was going first, I was very keen to start the ab with daylight remaining, so that I could visually check that the ends did in fact touch the deck. I’d previously had an experience where they didn’t (abbing into Red Walls at Gogarth), and was in no hurry to do that again. It was still light, and I could see the ends touched down (just), so I set off into the void. After the first 6-7 meters, you are in space. Very spooky…
One by one, all the lads did the space abseil, and we were reunited back on terra firma. And none of us had been “fulmared”! Now only the tottering scramble of doom remained (which I was also not keen on doing in the dark…). Off we set, and as we finally topped out, the sun was just setting. We toasted our ascent and the setting sun with the contents of a couple of hip flasks which mysteriously had found their way into my ruscac (well we were in Scotland), and strolled gently back over the moors in the dusk. John was waiting at Rackwick to pick us up, and back at base Steph had cooked a great meal and had cold beers in the fridge. Life doesn’t get much better!
Oh – and as for the title – with 2 youngsters aged 50, Ken at 56, and me at 57, the party had a combined age of 213!
Next day & exploring Hoy
After a lie in, and bacon butties (heaven!) John volunteered to take us for an easy ramble round South Walls, the area of Hoy where we were staying. It was a grey slightly chilly day (so we’d definitely chosen the best day for our ascent). For some incomprehensible reason we all found ourselves completely exhausted, and the gentle walk was far more tiring than it should have been. Eventually, by an unbelievable coincidence, we arrived at the islands sole pub just as it was opening, so we felt obliged to go in and drink beer. The next few hours seem somewhat hazy, but we did have a great time and were made very welcome by the island community.
On Tuesday John and Steph lent us their car (cars, and indeed houses, are never locked on Hoy) and we played tourist round the main island, which was extremely interesting, visiting prehistoric sites and the main town, Kirkwall. The weather still great.
Down to Torridon
Wednesday we decided to head down to Torridon as we had further ambitions to tick. The various ferries back and then the drive down took all day. We stayed at a hostel near Strathcarron where Liam demonstrated his chef skills by preparing a super evening meal.
Thursday adventures.
Next day we decided to split into two parties; Jim and Liam had designs on the Cioch Nose on Applecross, Ken and I decided this would involve too much wandering around in clouds, so we dropped Liam and Jim off at the summit of the Bealach Na Ba, getting a super view of the Black Cuillin above a cloud inversion.
The lads then disappeared downwards into the clouds, from whence it took them 3 times as long to find the route as it did to climb it (though it was apparently very good when they finally found it).
Meanwhile Ken and I decided we fancied a short walk in and some roadside cragging. I had long dreamed of climbing at Diabaig [see Diabaig bay left], and Ken was up for it too. Parked up in brilliant weather at one of the finest crag outlooks I’ve ever found, we wandered over to the crag. Diabaig Pillar was my objective, E2 5b 45m.
The first bit up a blunt arête looked easy( it wasn’t). This took me into a cracked R leaning groove which also looked easy (it wasn’t either). At the top of the flared groove I decided to face right and found myself executing desperate moves to get onto the main wall. Ken was shouting urgently up to me, and I was ignoring him, totally focussed on what I was doing (I get like that mid-crux). Finally after executing some very non-5b moves I made it out onto the wall and out of the groove. At this point I finally had enough spare brain cells to listen to Ken.“You missed a huge jug on the left side of the groove behind you”. That’ll be why it felt hard then.
I was now 1/3rd of the way up (it was a big route). The rest of the pitch was superb wall climbing, steep but just less than vertical, just enough holds, just enough gear, beautiful moves, nothing harder than 5b - and nothing easier than 5b. Eventually I pulled out over the top, belayed and brought Ken up. I’d been training hard for the Old Man of Hoy, and I felt pushed leading the Pillar. Ken had hardly done any climbing all year, and totally cruised the route - he didn’t seem pushed at all. I must be doing something wrong!The sun shone, the sky was deep blue and the sea was even deeper blue. I wandered round taking photos after the ascent while Ken sunbathed. Time seemed to pass, and we eventually thought we’d better head back to Applecross to pick the lads up. This didn’t go quite as smoothly as it might have done, but that was another story.
Summary
Thanks to the boys - a fantastic trip with a great team of lads, only climbed 2 routes but what routes. Had loads of laughs, and lots of sustained mickey taking, which is what it’s all about really. A lot of driving, and quite a bit of exploring. Hoy and the Orkneys is a fantastic spot but the weather is normally grey and very windy. Having said that, when the jet stream shifts too far south and most of the UK is getting battered by rain, Scotland can be in great condition, so well worth considering if you can arrange trips at short notice.
